


Fallen Leaves

by 100demons



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe, Canon Compliant, Drabble Collection, Drabbles, Gen, Minor Canonical Character(s), Minor Character(s), Multi, flashfic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-12-14
Updated: 2012-01-05
Packaged: 2017-10-27 08:39:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/293831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/100demons/pseuds/100demons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of stories focused on the people of Konoha.</p><p><i>"I am Branch," Neji said so softly, Tenten almost missed it. "And I have chosen my own Fate. My father gave his life for the clan and the safety of the village and I—how can I do any less? My time has come, Tenten. Let me fly free."</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. redux

1

redux

* * *

 _Thump. Thump. Thump._ The stacks of cup ramen and protein bars fell neatly into the hand basket, steadily, as a hand swiped the shelf clean. Tenten stifled a yawn with the back of her hand and kicked the basket across the floor and towards the counter, ignoring the bloodstains and soot marring the back of the armored plate.

"Hey," she nodded towards the cashier, long used the strange comings and goings of shinobi and their peculiar sense of fashion. Tenten's shin and arm guards, liberally smeared with ashes, dried blood and heavy knife scores, were given barely a second glance. Her short boyish hair, cut to the chin, gave off an oily sheen in the fluorescent lights. A closer inspection would've revealed clumps of dirt matted into her hair, and the smell of burnt chakra and flesh hovered closely around her.

"Tenten-san," the cashier responded politely, before methodically stacking her purchases and scanning them through the machine. It made quiet little buzzing sounds, and she bit the inside of her cheek, welcoming the pain. The buzzing noise sounded too much like a raiton building up, chakra humming as it danced along a katana. Footsteps echoed in the convenience store and Tenten tensed, before forcibly loosening her grip on the hidden kunai up her sleeves.

"Ahh," Shikamaru greeted her, his eyes hooded. He seemed permanently stuck in his slouch, hands shoved into his pockets, a bored look pasted onto his face. His uniform was clean, without the telltale smell of blood and chakra. There were dark circles under his eyes, made even more obvious by the buzzing lights overhead. He looked years older than twenty-one. If she had looked in a mirror herself, she knew she would find the same weary look as Shikamaru. Four years since the war had ended, but sometimes it seemed just like yesterday…

"Shikamaru," Tenten nodded and turned back to the register. Her thumb traced the inlay on the handle of a switchblade tucked inside a pocket as she forced herself to concentrate on it. _Back from the mission_ , she reminded herself. _I'm home, Ko-no-ha. Home._ Bit by bit her shoulders smoothed out and the creases on her forehead disappeared.

"How bad was it?" He asked casually, staring at nothing particular. An indistinct package hung loosely from his fingertips.

"Okay," she said slowly. "I'm alive, aren't I?" A grim smile briefly flitted across her features.

"Ahh. Evals coming up soon. Should be alive for that at least."

"Sadly, yes. Hopefully, I'll make mostly sane; heard the psych ward was a real killer."

Shikamaru hummed noncommittally. "He's in the hospital, you know?"

"Who?" Tenten searched his face, her voice turning sharp. The switchblade twitched under her hands.

"Hyuuga Neji. Recon cut short and he's in intensive care."

"Critical?" she asked tensely, feeling the cool metal bite into her skin.

"Stable. One of those missions," he said lazily, and Tenten understood. An ANBU mission.

"Twenty-two ryou, Tenten-san," the cashier interjected in a monotone and Tenten smiled tightly, handing over the crisp bills. Her hands were steady, belying the coiled tension she could feel tightening inside her.

"I'll see you," she smiled tightly, giving Shikamaru a shallow bow. "Thanks for-" She hesitated. _Thanks for letting me know that my former teammate almost killed himself?_ , she wondered, before biting the words down.

"I've been out for a while. I'll make sure to stop by the hospital." A quick flicker of chakra and Tenten disappeared, a soft gust of leaves hiding her exit.

"Troublesome," Shikamaru muttered, before fishing out a cigarette and lighting it up with an easy grace.

"Sorry?" the cashier asked politely, as he scanned the box of condoms and bagged it.

"Sometimes, even the smartest ninja can't see the traps they walk into," the Nara told the civilian in a world-weary voice. "And then they die." He sucked on the cigarette, holding the smoke in, looking lazy and deeply philosophical as he did so.

"I see," the clerk responded, his eyes bewildered. He handed the bag over to Shikamaru and bowed his farewells.

"Later," Shikamaru sighed, blowing a long stream of smoke out, and set out towards home. He would have to remember to send a note to Naruto and Ino about this later, before the situation became irreparable. The bag swinging lightly from his wrist, he took off for the roofs, the moon at his back.


	2. of the field

2

of the field

* * *

"War's coming, sensei."

Tipping the brim of his straw hat down, Kakashi shrugged and settled himself into the rocking chair on the porch. "I'm not your sensei, Sakura. You don't have to call me that anymore." He crossed his long legs and pulled out a cigarette from a shirt pocket, lighting it with a graceful flick of his fingers.

"Kakashi-sensei." He raised a brow at her sharp words and watched the smoke dissipate into the wind, over the fields and the swaying fields of wheat.

"What use could you have for someone like me? Best if you'd just left this old farmer alone where he can do the most good." If Sakura heard the thinly veiled threat, she didn't show it. Her sharp green eyes never left his own, cold and unreadable. He felt a surge of pride and guilt rise up in his chest, hot and warm like the smoke in his mouth, and wondered if he had taught his student a little too well.

"Konoha needs you." A shift of wind and chakra and Sakura's forehead was pressed down on the floorboards, only inches from his boots. Her palms were lying up in front of her, the line of her back deferential. "We —"

A gentle touch on her head stopped her. "Get up, Sakura." Never one to disobey her teacher, she rose gracefully, strands of pink hair fluttering with the sudden movement.

"If you were truly my student, you would understand why I can't accept. I left Konohagakure a very long time ago, Haruno Sakura. I don't intend on coming back." Ash scattered in the air as he waved his browned and calloused hand over the fields before him, the end of his cigarette glowing bright and red. "I'm here where I belong."

"But the _village_ needs you." She paused and drew in a deep breath before saying quietly, deceptively calm, "Naruto left the village and its people in our care. We can't just let him down like this. We _promised._ "

"Naruto is dead." The words tasted like death and ashes on his tongue. Kakashi grimaced and drew in another long breath of smoke. "And Hatake Kakashi died with him."

"Am I speaking to a ghost then?"

He smiled, the corner of his mouth tugging up a little. "No, just a tired farmer. I'm sure you have plenty of other exciting ninja things to be doing other than bothering some old civilian. The sun's going down."

"People who abandon their teammates are scum."

"Too bad all my teammates are dead, eh?" The cigarette butt flew through the air and over the porch railing, out of sight. "Go back to your village. I suspect that they'll be needing you soon, Hokage-sama."

Sakura knew defeat when she saw it and inclined her head. "I wish you the best in all your endeavors, Enoki-san."

Kakashi felt the twist in chakra and heard the shifting leaves scatter and swirl around her form. He was alone on the porch again. He sighed and folded Hatake Kakashi, burying him in a chest he kept locked up in the bottom of his heart. With careful hands he pulled on Sato Enoki and let the farmer settle around his shoulders gently.

Enoki glanced at the sunset and rose creakily from his chair. It was time to go inside now.


	3. xìng yùn

3

xìng yùn

* * *

My father loved games.

"Lee," he said sometimes. "When do you think the rain will fall? Tomorrow? Or tonight?" We wagered Māma's sweet mooncakes or sometimes, when Māma wasn't looking, pennies that Bàba took out of the cracked teacup on the tallest shelf in the kitchen. Bàba always won but he let me keep my pennies and mooncakes and we ate them together, watching the rainfall from our windows.

Once, Bàba showed me a little white die, patterned with tiny black pips. "Lee," he said. "I am going to teach you xìng yùn." He rolled the die over and over again and I watched the little black dots change with every toss. "There are six sides and each one has a different number. One through six." We curled up together on the floor, our crouched bodies hiding the die and the pile of pennies, and I leaned into him knowing that he was as immovable as a rock.

"If that is so, what is the chance of you getting a one when you roll?" I thought for a long time, watching the little bone-white die dance in his brown hands. "One out of six times."

Bàba nodded approvingly and I felt something in my chest fill, as if he had given me a missing piece that made me complete. "Good, Eldest Son. This is xìng yùn. They call it fortune or chance here in Fire Country, but the meaning is the same. The die rolls and only your luck will see you through."

I was eight when my mother showed me the star shaped bank nailed to the bottom of the closet. It was dark and cramped and smelled of old dust and mothballs, but her grip on my hand was tight as she told me her secret.

"This," she said, "is our star bank. Every day, I put in a few pennies here. One day, soon, we will have enough to buy land here in Fire Country. Something that is ours and no one can take away." Her breath was warm on the back of my neck and when we crawled out of the closet together, blinking from the sudden light hitting our faces, I promised to tell no one. Not even Bàba.

My father worked sometimes as a day laborer but mostly, he stayed home, reading the paper and smoking cigarettes while my mother kept an eye on Little Sister and made silk kimonos, her fingers quick and nimble. He would go out at night and come back late smelling of smoke and shāojiǔ and when he stumbled inside, he rang of dice and loose pennies.

When I was nine, my father left. I came home one evening and I found Māma crying on the floor, holding Little Sister and the empty star bank in her lap. Little Sister was crying too and her face was red and wet and suddenly, I felt my eyes burn and something trickle down my cheeks.

The dice fell and when they stopped turning, I was left with nothing but my xìng yùn and a broken family.


	4. duty, honor, country

4

duty, honor, country  
love

* * *

The blade scored a little thin line on his neck, drawing a tiny drop of blood; Neji didn't even flinch, instead narrowing his eyes, dark brows tugging together minutely.

"Neji, don't make me do this." Tenten's voice wavered and faltered, but her hand remained steady. The kunai never moved. Though pinned down to the ground with a knife at his neck and explosive tags ringing his arms, he felt a distant admiration of her skills. He remained silent and cautiously stirred the chakra in his hands; too much and he might activate the tags. At this range, neither of them would survive. He wasn't quite that desperate. Yet.

"Hinata wouldn't want you to do this." Neji froze and felt Tenten's sharp knees dig into the small of his back. Fury rose in him like a bonfire, heat flooding his chest, cheeks flushing. _She dared—_

"Don't," he hissed. "Don't speak to me of things you don't know."

"Oh?" A rough hand cradled his jaw almost tenderly before roughly jerking his head back, kunai still at his throat. Even upside down, her dark grey eyes blazed fiercely, stark against her unnaturally pale skin.

"Then let me tell you the things I do know. I know that you're being a fucking idiot, okay. I know that you're planning on some stupid hare-brained rescue of Hinata all the way in _Kumo_ , which is, in case you didn't know, at least three weeks travel away and filled with enemy shinobi who are dying to get their hands on the Byakugan. I know that you're out on the Outer Wall without any papers and passes at all past _curfew_ , which means that at the very least you'll be arrested and placed on probation for a month. That's what I _do_ know."

"As are you," Neji pointed out mulishly, a corner of his mouth curving downwards. In any other person it would've meant mild disapproval; for Neji, it meant that he was truly and absolutely furious.

"Yeah, because I'm here to drag your sorry ass back inside." She neatly slid off of his back but kept the weapon at his throat, taking care not to draw any more blood than she already had. She crouched down in front of him on light feet, her ratty shirt fluttering a little in the night breeze, unbound hair falling in dark waves around her white face.

"Are you going to listen to sense now? Running off like this won't bring Hinata back. You'll probably just end up captured and killed and—" Tenten's voice hitched but she soldiered on, pretending it had never happened "—and then I'll have to deal with Lee and Gai-sensei all by myself. That's really cruel of you to do that, you know." The joke fell flat in the heavy air and Neji almost flinched at the weight of the words on his shoulders.

"I have a duty—"

"Your duty is to stay here and serve Konoha." Tenten's eyes softened and she gently drew the blade away from his neck. With a delicate finger, she lightly traced the line of the cut, blood slowly gathering on the tip like a cluster of jewels.

"By serving the clan, I serve the Village." Somehow, in a strange way, her tender hand at his throat seemed more dangerous than the kunai it had replaced. He swallowed heavily, Adam's apple bobbing under her palm, ignoring the small prickles that traveled up and down his spine like little tendrils of lightning.

"Then for the clan, for Hinata, for the Village, Neji, _stay_." Her grey eyes seemed to look straight into him, peeling back layer after layer until he was bare, open and vulnerable to that piercing gaze. Neji was the first to look away, the line of his jaw uncertain. A long silence fell over them, interrupted only by the soft sighs of the wind and the occasional cry of a hunting owl.

"I am Branch," Neji said so softly, Tenten almost missed it. "And I have chosen my own Fate. My father gave his life for the clan and the safety of the village and I—how can I do any less? My time has come, Tenten. Let me fly free."

"No," she said fiercely. "I can't—you _can't_ —you have to—don't _go._ " Her voice broke and the raw pain and sorrow drove into his chest like a shuriken striking a target. A perfect hit. Neji closed his eyes and felt the _manji_ seal burn with chakra, a heavy brand on his forehead.

"Please."

Neji stayed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An outtake from my other work, Dulce et Decorum.


End file.
